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Thesis project imagines a footbridge to Hutchinson

I'll confess that my eyes rolled a little when Andreas Mayer began to tell me about his thesis project.

A Fulbright scholar from Germany, Mayer is in Savannah finishing up graduate work in architecture at the Savannah College of Art and Design.

Since Mayer's thesis required some working knowledge of the history of Savannah's development patterns, professor Arpad Daniel Ronaszegi suggested that Mayer ask me to be his topic consultant.

I had served in this challenging, interesting and unpaid capacity once before for one of professor Ronaszegi's students. As a member of the media, I generally deal with the outer face of SCAD, so it's a particular pleasure to experience the intellectual energy of the students firsthand.

At our first meeting, Mayer began telling me about the project, a mixed-use development consisting of three interrelated buildings on Hutchinson Island.

Even if my eyes weren't literally rolling, my mind was already leaping ahead to all the impracticalities, fundamentally related to transportation issues.

Ever since Savannah was founded, Hutchinson Island has always seemed so close and yet so far away. In 275 years, it's been home to a variety of uses, including agriculture, light industry and a race course, to name a few.

Now there's the Savannah International Trade and Convention Center, the Westin Savannah Harbor, the mostly empty SEDA office building, and lots of unrealized plans for other developments.

Despite nearly three centuries of grand plans and a handful of successes, Hutchinson remains underutilized, largely cut off from the bustling and beautiful city across the river.

I was prepared to point out all of this to Mayer, but he was about 10 steps ahead of me.

A pedestrian bridge

Now, before your own eyes start rolling, consider the Puente de la Mujer, a pedestrian bridge in Buenos Aires designed by Santiago Calatrava.

The middle portion of Calatrava's bridge swings open to allow freighter traffic to pass through.

The pedestrian bridge was just one portion of Mayer's analysis of downtown mobility. He also noted that Bay Street serves as a barrier between the city and River Street, which relies too heavily on tourists for its commerce.

So Mayer agrees with the many Savannahians who have advocated a second vehicular bridge to Hutchinson at the north end of the Truman Parkway. That would give an alternate route for through traffic, and then Bay Street could be altered to mirror Oglethorpe Avenue with its two lanes and broad median.

Mayer imagines the pedestrian bridge extending from the Bull Street corridor at the Bay Street level.

In a move that would surely draw the ire of preservationists, he imagines the main floor of City Hall hollowed out, so that folks could pass straight through the building onto the bridge over the Savannah River.

At one point, I suggested that Mayer consider putting the bridge along the Barnard Street corridor, but no matter where such a bridge might be placed, it would be an automatic attraction for locals and for tourists.

Joggers, hikers and bicyclists would routinely cross it and be able to enjoy a new network of trails on Hutchinson.

Meanwhile, Hutchinson would boom.

A couple of years ago, a commercial real estate broker told me that he couldn't put a company in the SEDA building simply because there was nowhere for workers to go for lunch without driving. With all of downtown suddenly a short walk or bike ride away, such concerns would evaporate.

Employees and residents on Hutchinson could head straight into downtown for lunch, for business meetings, for banking, for nightlife.

With an elevator from the bridge down to River Street, shops and restaurants that now cater almost exclusively to tourists would find themselves with regular local customers.

Of course, this is all speculation, and there would be a lot of objections if such a project moved forward.

In the real world, the bridge would be expensive. In the long run, however, the increases in property values and economic activity would certainly offset the cost.

And keep in mind that Calatrava's bridge in Buenos Aires was actually donated to the city by a wealthy family. (By the way, there's a three-minute YouTube video of the experience of crossing the bridge.)

Of course, there would no doubt be big concerns about the freighter traffic. Would the bridge really work as it should and not disrupt the port activity?

I don't have space here to describe the rest of Mayer's thesis, which primarily deals with development on Hutchinson.

But the project has certainly been an eye-opener for me. Sometimes it takes someone from outside to provide a new vision and a new sense of place.

City Talk appears every Tuesday and Sunday. Bill Dawers can be reached at billdawers@comcast.net. Send mail to 10 East 32nd St., Savannah, GA 31401.